


Don't you know that the hardest part's not having you to hold?

by JuliaBaggins



Category: The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (2015)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, Love Confessions, M/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-17
Updated: 2016-04-17
Packaged: 2018-06-02 17:27:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6575350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JuliaBaggins/pseuds/JuliaBaggins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Illya and Napoleon are helplessly in love with each other, but instead of talking about their feelings, they get into a heated argument. Illya says some things he will regret. And shortly after, Napoleon gets captured...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't you know that the hardest part's not having you to hold?

**Author's Note:**

> I re-watched the movie for like the hundredth time yesterday (with my grandma, and she liked it!) and somehow, the idea for this story was born. Now it's 4AM, and I need to get up early tomorrow, and I'm actually quite proud of what I wrote.

It had been a bad day, a really bad one, and Napoleon knew this. He was aware that it was at least partly his fault that their mission to steal some documents from a bunch of really bad people had not been successful. And now, instead of getting over it with some scotch and thoughts of how to make it up, he faced a furious Russian who had been screaming at him for a few minutes now.

Napoleon had tried to calm the situation down at first, to apologize, but when it seemed as if Illya accused him of having failed their mission on purpose, he started screaming right back at him.

“Well, if you dislike the way I’m doing my job that much, why are you still working with me?“

“I honestly don’t know.” 

Illya’s voice was calm now, cold, and the sound of it made Napoleon shiver.

“You’re a _terrible_ spy.”

And with that, Illya left the room, not looking back. Napoleon was glad for this as he was not trusting his face at the moment, nor his hands that had started trembling. It had not been the first time that Illya had called him a terrible spy, but it was the first time there wasn’t a “Cowboy” attached to it, a barely noticeable smirk around his lips, a feeling of something close to friendship underneath. It was the first time he had said the words after a mission actually went wrong. And, worst of all, it was the first time that Napoleon felt like Illya actually meant what he said.

 

Napoleon, Illya and Gaby spend most of the next day with research and investigating, looking for another opportunity to steal the documents, and it was like the air between the two men had been filled with ice.

Illya tried to ignore the way Gaby looked at him since the morning and did his best to avoid any opportunity for her to talk to him, but of course he wasn’t successful. So, in the late evening, it was just the two of them in his hotel room, after she had knocked at the door for several _minutes,_ simply refusing to take No for an answer.

“Illya.” 

Her voice was soft, as well as her eyes, and it was hard for Illya to keep the angry look at his face. He had never been good at being angry at Gaby, especially when she looked at him like that.

“What happened to you?”

“Nothing happened. Everything is fine.”

Illya’s words were not even close to sound convincing, and he knew it. But he was just too tired after the last few days, too exhausted (especially after the argument with Napoleon) to care.

“Oh, I’m not stupid, Illya, so I know that nothing is _fine_ at the moment. Something happened between you and Solo, and I need you to tell me.”

“Was Solo’s fault that our last mission went wrong. If he had done his job, we would have gotten the plans.”

Gaby nodded slowly before she carefully put one of her hands on top of Illya’s, which was clenched into a fist.

“Illya, listen. I know that yesterday wasn’t Solo’s best day, that it would have been his job to make sure that room was empty before he went forward, but nothing happened so…”

“ _Nothing happened!_ ” 

Illya spat the words out like he had tasted something extremely bitter and Gaby flinched.

“Yes, all of us got out of there, and surely there will be another chance to…”

“Solo was careless. Could have gotten himself killed.”

“But he didn’t, you took the henchmen out.”

“What if I hadn’t been there? He’d be _dead_ by now, just because that _damn American_ is unable to fulfill just the simplest…”

 

And suddenly, it hit Gaby, and everything fit into place. All of the small confusing things her brain had registered during the last few months now turned together to form one big picture. Somehow, now that she was sure to know the reason for the sometimes strange behavior of her partners, she was surprised that she hadn’t noticed it earlier.

Because Illya was not angry about the failed mission and the lost documents, not really. He was angry because Napoleon hadn’t taken good care of his own life and though Illya had been there to help him, he couldn’t shake the thought off of what would have happened if he hadn’t been. Illya was angry, so angry that his knuckles turned white from how hard he was pressing his hands into fists to avoid the shaking, because he cared about Napoleon. A lot.

Gaby remembered many moments during their last missions, how Illya had nearly killed a man for insulting Napoleon, how the American had smiled when Illya had said that he liked what he had cooked for him, the way the Russian was saying “Cowboy” changing from a half-hearted insult to something like an endearment, Napoleon turning down the advances of beautiful women in at least three different states. And so much more that Gaby soon was convinced that the grumpy Russian in front of her was head over heels in love with their American partner, and that Napoleon had helplessly fallen for Illya too.

There were two other things Gaby was certain about. First, she knew that actually she should find the thought of her two male partners having romantic feelings for each other disgusting. It would be wrong, wasn’t that what she had been told? But somehow, it didn’t feel like this. Because these two were her friends, probably the two people she cared about most in the world, and she was certain that they could make each other very happy. So what should be wrong about that? They were just two people in love, after all.

The second thing Gaby knew for sure was that though Illya and Napoleon had feelings of a very romantic nature for each other, none of them knew that they were returned. It surprised her, and at the same time it didn’t, as she had been able to not see it for that long too. And in that moment, Gaby promised herself to take the matter into her own hands.

 

“Gaby?”

She blinked. The train of thoughts she had been on was so overwhelming that she had completely forgotten about Illya sitting in front of her, probably talking the whole time. Now, he looked at her with a mix of anger and confusion on his face.

“Sorry, I need to talk to Solo!”

She stood up rather abruptly and stormed out of the room, leaving behind an Illya who huffed in frustration. Gaby was in front of Napoleon’s door within a minute and knocked one, two, three times. The American looked tired when he opened the door, and the polite smile on his lips was not reaching his eyes.

“Good evening, Gaby.”

“Napoleon, I need to talk to you. It’s _important._ ”

She added the last part when she saw that he was going to protest, and after a small nod she made her way into his room. Gaby was still not sure what would be the best way to get to the topic she needed to talk about, but she was convinced that she needed to get things clear as soon as possible. 

Because though Napoleon and Illya obviously liked each other, they had still hurt each other in yesterday’s argument, she had known that from the stiff way they acted today, from how Napoleon slightly flinched every time Illya spoke to him in his coldest possible voice. From how they hadn’t been able to look each other in the eye for the whole day. So Gaby had to make sure that no permanent damage was done to their relationship as a consequence of what had been said in the heat of the moment, and her first step was for Napoleon to realize _why_ Illya had been that angry with him.

“Napoleon, I need to talk about Illya with you.”

The American clenched his teeth as soon as she mentioned their friend’s name and it hurt to see that. She wondered what the Russian might have said out of his blind anger, if she would even want to know.

“What about him?”

Napoleon had always been a good actor, and so the tremor in his voice was barely audible for Gaby. Still, it was there.

“Look, I know you had an argument yesterday, and I assume both of you said things that you didn’t actually mean, but I need you to…”

“What? To be grateful for him saving my life?”

Gaby was surprised about his answer, as well as the annoyed tone he spat it out in.

“Well, that was not what I actually wanted to say…”

“Fine. Because though of course I’m grateful, _he_ doesn’t need my gratitude.”

The German blinked at Napoleon in confusion and his next words were so quiet that she could barely here them.

“I don’t think you need the gratitude of someone you hate.”

That hit Gaby like a punch to the stomach. How could Napoleon even _think_ that _Illya Kuryakin_ of all people hated him?

 

Gaby had just opened her mouth to tell Napoleon how utterly wrong he was when the phone rang. Napoleon got up with a stoic expression on his face, spoke a few sentences to the person at the other end of the line and turned around to face Gaby.

“Waverly. They got a hint at where the plans may be now, and he needs us to get there as soon as possible.”

Gaby sighed. She didn’t want their conversation to end at this point, and she knew fairly well that every one of them would actually need lots of sleep before another mission. But she also knew that there weren’t any other people to finish the job in that far corner of the world, and that it would be better for the security of some countries of the free world if those plans wouldn’t stay in the hands of those people who owned it at the moment.

So Gaby got up, quickly got to her room for a change of clothes and then met with Illya and Napoleon in the otherwise empty lobby of the little hotel. When the two men spoke two each other there was no emotion audible, everything was somewhere between stiff and professional, and Gaby ached for their mission to end so they’d be able to talk about that. It would have been hard for her to see the two of them like that in any case (they were like a family after all; a family that should take care of each other and not talk like they were machines while somewhere deep within them, their hearts broke), but know that she had had her illumination about their mutual feelings, it was even worse.

 

Gaby had stayed outside of the abandoned school building, keeping in touch with the local police that should be there within minutes, while Napoleon and Illya went inside. There were gunshots to be heard from the building, something that worried Gaby, and when she tried to reach the Russian as well as the American over the comms and none of them answered, her worry increased. 

It took the police seven minutes to get there, and three more to have the building surrounded. Gaby heard one of the officers say something about a suspicious van that had been driving away and should be followed, but at the moment, she couldn’t find herself to care if the bad guys had been able to get away. The only thing that mattered was to make sure that Illya and Napoleon were okay.

She got into the building surrounded by three heavily armed police officers and every corner they walked around, she feared to see the worst. It was on the second floor, in a classroom that must have been used for chemistry years ago, judged by the faded poster of the periodic system on the wall, when her worst fears seemed to come true and her heart seemed to skip at least a bit. Because there, next to a table that had been flipped upside down, lay Illya Kuryakin on his stomach, and he was not moving. 

Gaby ran forward, not paying any attention to what the policemen said to her.

“Illya!”

She got down on her knees and actually managed to turn his heavy body around so he was laying on his back, face towards her. And there had never been a more beautiful sight to Gaby Teller than when she saw how Illya’s chest slowly moved up and down underneath his dark sweater.

“Illya.”

Gaby noticed the tear that was running down her cheek when she softly touched his face, pulled back a few strands of blond hair and pressed her other hand to his chest, as if to convince herself that his heart was actually beating.

“Illya, please open her eyes.”

And he did. Bright blue was blinking at Gaby, confused at first, then widened in terror.

“Gaby!”

“Shhh, it’s alright, there’s an ambulance coming…”

“They have him. Please Gaby, promise you’ll find my Cow…”

Illya’s eyes drifted shut as he lost consciousness again and it was right in that moment when two paramedics stepped into the room to check on him. Gaby was watching their movements while at the same time, she talked to one of the policemen in a heated voice about how one U.N.C.L.E. - agent was still missing and that finding him had to be the police’s top priority. He nodded before he left the room, quickly talking into his walkie talkie. 

One of the paramedics got up to talk to Gaby while the other one was busy with stabilizing Illya’s head. 

“Madame, it looks like he got a hit to the back of his head with something heavy. There might be a mild concussion, but nothing life threatening.”

That was all Gaby needed to hear, and she stormed out of the room to find news about Napoleon or, preferable, the American himself.

 

It was nearly an hour later and the police had been still unable to find Napoleon. The common assumption was that he had been in the van that got away together with what was left of the bad guys, and somehow the police had been able to loose trace of that van. If Gaby hadn’t been so incredibly scared she would have been angry.

The police needed three more hours to find Napoleon and when they did, Gaby was there with them. She watched how Napoleon’s capturers were taken down by the police’s bullets one by one, how the one who had been holding a knife at Solo’s throat when they stormed in fell to the ground after a bullet went right through his left eye, and it seemed to be not nearly enough. Because Napoleon, tied to a chair, was covered in blood, most of his clothing was torn, and when Gaby noticed how two fingers of his left hand were missing, she was not sure if she needed to vomit or to cry forever.

When Gaby felt for a pulse with shaking fingers, she couldn’t find one.

 

Illya woke up in a hospital room and the first thing he noticed was the dim light of an early morning shining through the curtains. His head felt dizzy, and he was not sure how he had gotten here. There had been a mission, chemistry charts, a bunch of men in grey suits coming at him all at once, and Napoleon had… _Napoleon._ Illya sat up apparently and that caught the attention of Gaby, who had been dozing in a chair close to his bed. When she lifted her head, Illya could see the red in her eyes, the tracks of tears on her pale cheeks and his heart broke as he was convinced that he hadn’t been hurt enough to cause such a reaction.

“Oh, _Illya._ ”

She half climbed on his bed to be able to hug him, and when she did so, he could feel how she was trembling. It was one of the hardest things Illya had ever done to say the following question out loud, when there was nothing he feared as much as the answer.

“Is he alive?”

Illya simply couldn’t bring himself to say Napoleon’s name, because saying his name together with the word _alive_ in a _question_ , that alone would have felt like a defeat.

Gaby nodded, and at the same time she started crying again, heavy sobs shaking through her small body. She knew how she owned Illya an explanation for what happened, but it still took some moments to get herself together enough to be speaking again.

 

“It looks like you got hit unconscious by them while they took Napoleon with them. I don’t know why they didn’t kill you, maybe because they knew the police was close by, but well, they didn’t, so they just left you there, and…”

“Gaby.”

Illya looked at her with tears blinking in his eyes.

“Please tell me what happened to Napoleon.”

Gaby took a deep breath before she continued talking and tried to focus on the tree that grew in front of the room’s small window, as she wasn’t sure her heart would survive looking at Illya’s reaction to what she would be saying.

“They tortured him. We don’t know if it was done for information or out of pure viciousness, but.... As far as the doctors could say, they whipped him, beat him, punctured one of his lungs. They… They cut off two of his fingers. There were several broken bones, two gunshot wounds that caused a lot of damage, and his heart...”

Gaby buried her face in her hands.

“His heart stopped beating because of the electrocution, and they were able to revive him, but they couldn’t tell me if he’ll make it, and as far as I know he’s still in surgery.”

She finally looked at Illya again, at Illya who had been completely silent through her whole speech that got only interrupted by Gaby’s own sobs, and if she had thought that her heart couldn’t break anymore, then she had been wrong. The look on Illya’s face in that moment burned himself into her memory, it appeared in her nightmares for years, and just thinking of it in later times could be enough to make her cry again.

 

Illya and Gaby sat together in silence, as there were no words that could be said to improve the situation even the slightest bit, and they were holding onto each other’s hands like these were the only anchors preventing them from getting lost in the horrible knowledge of what had happened, in their guilt, their unbearable fear for their friend’s life.

None of them could have said how long it took till the doctor got into the room, a tall man, hints of grey in his dark hair, tired eyes behind elegant glasses. 

“Mister Solo survived the surgeries. And though it’s too early to make definite statements, I’m positive to say that he’ll wake up again and recover, at least mostly.”

After his tears had been on edge for some time now, Illya finally started crying, and Gaby was crying with him while a wet smile spread across her face, and both of them were absolutely overwhelmed by too many emotions at once. 

 

As soon as visitors were allowed in Napoleon’s room, Illya got there, silencing the protests of a nurse when he got out of his own hospital bed with one single glance. He sat down next to Napoleon’s bed and though there was nothing he wanted to do more in the world than to hold his bandaged hand that was laying on top of the covers in his own, he was scared to do so. Because Napoleon looked so weak, so _broken,_ that Illya feared one single touch could shatter him to pieces. So he kept his hands to his own, tried to focus on the steady beat of Napoleon’s heart, and found himself praying to a god he had never really believed in that the American would wake up again.

And Napoleon woke up indeed. Illya had lost count of hours and days, it wasn’t a real difference if it was night or day, because everything that mattered was the man in the bed next to him, the man he loved, the man whom he _needed_ to open his eyes again. He was aware that Gaby got there quite often as well as some hospital staff, but nothing they said was able to reach his mind, and the nurses had been quick to learn that there was no point in telling the giant Russian that the visiting hours were limited. He stayed at Napoleon’s side, slept in the hard plastic chair, sometimes ate a few bits of what Gaby brought him and watched the American’s face. The bruises that changed their color, dark long lashes against his cheeks. Sometimes it were those lashes he dreamed about, how they framed Napoleon’s beautiful eyes that looked like there was some secret joke somewhere only them could see…

 

“Illya?”

It was a whisper, barely audible, but Illya had gotten so used to the room’s silence, only broken by the heart monitor, that he woke up instantly. And as soon as he did, he saw Napoleon Solo, eyes open, blinking at him in confusion.

Illya had thought of so many things he wanted to say to his partner but now, as he was faced with him being awake, he found himself unable to form just one of those thoughts into words.

“Illya, what are you doing here?”

“There was a mission in an abandoned school building, and I got knocked out while they took you away, and they, they did…”

A sad look appeared on Napoleon’s face.

“I remember what they did. But I still don’t understand.”

Now it was Illya’s turn to look confused.

“I mean, why do you care?”

_“What?”_

That had come out louder, more furious than Illya had intended, and he cursed himself in his thoughts when he saw how Napoleon flinched at the sound. The American’s voice was even more quiet than before when he continued speaking.

“You know, this was not your fault. You couldn’t have done anything.”

Illya wanted to start protesting when suddenly, he realized what Napoleon was implying. _But that couldn’t be true._

“You think I’m here just because I feel guilty for what has been done to you. That I _wouldn’t care_ about _you._ ”

Napoleon didn’t answer but Illya could judge from the look in his eyes that he had said the truth.

“Oh, Napoleon.”

Finally, Illya reached forward, and oh so gentle he touched Napoleon’s wounded hand with his own, brushed his thumb feather light over his knuckles. There were tears in his eyes, again, and his voice was shaking when he continued talking.

“How could you ever even think that I wouldn’t l…, that I wouldn’t care for you?”

“After that argument we had, and what you said, I thought…”

Napoleon closed his mouth when he saw how Illya broke down, how he buried his face in the blanket that was covering Napoleon, how the sobs left him trembling. He would have liked to run a hand through Illya’s hair, to try to soothe him, but when he made an attempt at moving his hand it was notable even through the painkillers he had in his system that this wouldn’t be a good idea. So there was nothing left that Napoleon could do, except for watching how Illya slowly calmed down a bit again.

 

“Illya?”

The Russian looked up at Napoleon with bloodshot eyes while a hiccup escaped his lips. He took the American’s bandaged hand in both of his and placed a light kiss on top of it before he spoke again.

“Napoleon Solo, don’t you _dare_ to ever think that I _wouldn’t care_ about you again. Never. Because I do. I wouldn’t have known what to do with myself, had you been… You, you must know that I…”

A deep breath from Illya, a glimmer of hope in Napoleon’s eyes.

“I love you, Cowboy.”

It was a simple statement, and those four words felt like they were not nearly enough to express everything that Illya felt for his partner, but when he saw the smile that grew on Napoleon’s lips, the single tear that rolled down his abused cheek, it was quite clear to him that he had said the right thing.

“I love you too, you know.”

Napoleon almost sounded shy when he said that, and Illya started placing light kisses to his hand, his arm, his cheeks, every part of him he could reach before he finally and very carefully kissed Napoleon’s lips. It was a short kiss, an unbelievably sweet one, one that screamed for more, and when Illya opened his eyes again, his own face only inches away from Napoleon’s, he could see the slight blush underneath his bruises. 

Napoleon smiled, again, and Illya promised him in his thoughts that from now on, he would tell him that he loved him as often as possible, he would show him in every possible way and he would make sure that not a day would pass without Napoleon having smiled that breathtakingly beautiful smile.

 

When Gaby walked into the room a few minutes later, she was extremely surprised to see Illya and Napoleon quietly talking to each other and her first reflex was to tell the two man how they should have told her that the American woke up. But then, she looked closer at them, she saw the nearly dried tears on Illya’s cheeks, the smile on Napoleon’s face, the way they were holding each other’s hands, how Illya protectively hovered above Napoleon’s bed. How both of them seemed to be lost in each other’s eyes while soft words left their lips.

And so, Gaby left the room without them noticing that she had been there, and if another tear rolled down her cheek, it wasn’t one of sadness…

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from James Blunt's song "The Only One."
> 
> Thanks for reading! If you would take the time to leave a nice comment you would literally make my day :)


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